SNOWDAY

Today there was a locals challenge race. I was scared because of fresh snow falling fast which means poor visibility and uneven amounts of accumulation. When I say scared...I mean scared shitless. I notice that I am encountering more of these moments as I get older and find my body limits going through changes. I can no longer recklessly disregard my fears. Sometimes it is very wise to listen to them and allow them to have some say in the discussions that go on in my head. Sometimes they are wise and actually an attempt to take care of me. It's not always easy to know when to listen and when to say...shush...your just my fears and I CAN do this. My very first race was my first encounter with shutting up the fearsong and dropping into the course anyway. I had built up such a reservoir of emotion that when I crossed the finish line, I bent over forward and burst into tears. It was a HUGE DRAMATIC moment for me. For everyoneelse...it was a normal everyday race day. Today I had the same experience...but it wasn't the very first. I stood in the starting gate with what felt like the norovirus in my stomach. The fearsong was banging away in my head but I also had a new song softly playing in the background...the you can do it just go slow and stay in control song...the I don't care what I look like, I'm gonna cross that finish line song...the yes you've always wimped out during snowdays but today you are gonna do it song. I hear myself laughing and joking with my teammates but deep inside, I know I am pretending. I am not feeling powerful or capable or strong or brave. I am feeling like I want to shrivel up and hide. So today...I raced. I crossed the finish line whole. I did it even though I was afraid. I did it. And with that little feather in my cap...I came home and headed out into the woods with Sadie on snowshoes. The snow was softly falling. The woods were absolute silence and there were no tracks but ours as a few inches made everything fresh and new. The silence was absolute...i could hear my thumping heart and an occaisional caw of a raven. Making fresh tracks...watching the pines being frosted...imagining the snort of a deer or the presence of other wildlife in the woods...enjoying watching Sadie leap and run like a little jack rabbit...I laughed out loud. Pushing across the border of my comfort zone...that is why I came to Maine. I moved away from all I knew to begin a life here where there is still wilderness and unbroken stretches of wild landscape to soothe my easily tangled brain. I can't even begin to explain how it is that my heart responds to the wild landscape like there is space opening up inside me. I have held back from so much living because of fear...because I've talked myself out of doing things that pushed a fear button rather than speaking up to my fear and saying shhhshhhshhh...be quiet fear...I'm just gonna do this scarey thing anyway. So..in the silence of a snow day, I heard something chirp in my heart. It was the sound of courage and it came from within myself. This is what it means to fly...it means not to be weighted down by fear but instead...to listen to the voice of encouragement and to BELIEVE.